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The 2023 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Local Reporting
For a distinguished example of coverage of significant issues of local or statewide concern, demonstrating originality and community connection, using any available journalistic tool, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).

Anna Wolfe of Mississippi Today, Ridgeland, Miss.

For reporting that revealed how a former Mississippi governor used his office to steer millions of state welfare dollars to benefit his family and friends, including NFL quarterback Brett Favre.

Anna Wolfe (far left) accepts a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting from Columbia University President Emeritus Lee Bollinger. (Diane Bondareff/The Pulitzer Prizes)

Winning Work

Biography

Anna Wolfe, a native of Tacoma, Wa., is an investigative reporter writing about poverty and economic justice. Before joining the staff at Mississippi Today in September of 2018, Anna worked for three years at Clarion Ledger, Mississippi’s statewide daily newspaper. She also worked as an investigative reporter for the Center for Public Integrity and Jackson Free Press, the capital city’s alternative newsweekly. Anna has received national recognition for her work, including the 2021 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the 2021 Collier Prize for State Government Accountability, the 2021 John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award, the 2020 Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award and the February 2020 Sidney Award for reporting on Mississippi’s debtors prisons. She received the National Press Foundation’s 2020 Poverty and Inequality Award. She also received first place in the regional Green Eyeshade Awards in 2021 for Public Service in Online Journalism and 2020 for Business Reporting, and the local Bill Minor Prize for Investigative Journalism in 2019 and 2018 for reporting on unfair medical billing practices and hunger in the Mississippi Delta.

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Local Reporting in 2023:

Staff of the Los Angeles Times

For coverage of the state’s legal cannabis industry that combined satellite imagery, public records searches and sometimes dangerous on-the-ground reporting to reveal widespread criminality, labor abuses and environmental consequences.

The Jury

Kimi Yoshino(Chair)

Editor-in-Chief, The Baltimore Banner

Carol Hunter

Executive Editor, The Des Moines Register

Libor Jany

LAPD Reporter, Los Angeles Times

Richard Kim

Editor-in-Chief, The City

Kathleen McGrory*

Reporter, ProPublica

Ray Rivera

Executive Editor, The Oklahoman

Marlon A. Walker

Managing Editor, Local, The Marshall Project

Winners in Local Reporting

2021

Kathleen McGrory and Neil Bedi of the Tampa Bay Times

For resourceful, creative reporting that exposed how a powerful and politically connected sheriff built a secretive intelligence operation that harassed residents and used grades and child welfare records to profile schoolchildren.
2020

Staff of The Baltimore Sun

For illuminating, impactful reporting on a lucrative, undisclosed financial relationship between the city’s mayor and the public hospital system she helped to oversee.
2019

Staff of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, La.

For a damning portrayal of the state’s discriminatory conviction system, including a Jim Crow-era law, that enabled Louisiana courts to send defendants to jail without jury consensus on the accused’s guilt.
See All Local Reporting

2023 Prize Winners

Commentary

Kyle Whitmire of AL.com, Birmingham

For measured and persuasive columns that document how Alabama's Confederate heritage still colors the present with racism and exclusion, told through tours of its first capital, its mansions and monuments–and through the history that has been omitted.
Investigative Reporting

Staff of The Wall Street Journal

For sharp accountability reporting on financial conflicts of interest among officials at 50 federal agencies, revealing those who bought and sold stocks they regulated and other ethical violations by individuals charged with safeguarding the public’s interest.
See All 2023 Winners